The first picture show

By Walter Boyd / Special to the Times-News

Published: Sunday, March 10, 2013 at 02:55 PM.

Clark Coley ran the Victory and Crystal theaters until the fall of 1922, when he moved to Sherman, Texas. Pickens Calhoun “Mack” McIntire, a 66-year old former butcher and theater operator in High Point, bought both the Victory and Crystal theaters. He promptly renamed the Victory “Mack,” after himself (and also renamed the Crystal “Rose”). The day-to-day management of both theaters was handled by his 43-year old son, William Calhoun McIntire.

McIntire died at Rainey Hospital on June 4, 1925, and the Mack and Rose were soon sold to Direction-Stevenson Theaters, which was just finishing construction of the new Carolina Theater on Main Street. When it opened a short time later, both were closed (although the Crystal/Rose reopened briefly as the “Lyric”). The building where the Grotto/Victory/Mack was located was eventually acquired by F. W. Woolworth & Co. and used to house its lunch counter until it closed in the late 1960s. The building is currently being renovated.

Burlington has had many movie theaters over the years and most of them, including the State, Carolina, Alamance, and Terrace, are no longer standing. But Burlington’s first movie theater, the Grotto, opened in the fall of 1907 and the building which housed it is still standing at 412 South Main St.

The Grotto was actually a combination bowling alley and theater co-founded and co-owned by two 29-year old businessmen: William Manly Baker and Thornton Dudley Dupuy. Manly Baker, a native of Tarboro, had come to town about 1898 to join his new brother-in-law, Finley Lea Williamson, as a junior partner in his wholesale grocery business, F.L. Williamson Co. Dudley Dupuy, a native of Virginia, had previously taught school and was at the time manager of the Burlington branch of the Scott-Mebane Co., a Graham-based manufacturer of overalls.

In 1909, Finley Williamson decided to go into the automobile business and Dudley Dupuy went to Greensboro to sell insurance, so they sold the Grotto to Cyrus J. McMichael, a contractor from Greensboro. He ran it for about a year before selling it to local livery stable owner Theodore Dunreath “Ode” Fogleman and his brother-in-law, Benjamin Pechmann “Ben” Davies, a printer. However, when Ben Davies decided to move back to his native Barnwell, S.C. at the beginning of 1910, he and Ode Fogleman sold the Grotto to Bascom Hornaday and Emanuel May.

Emanuel May, who everyone called “Manuel,” took over day-to-day operations at the Grotto and became so well known as manager that many accounts of Burlington’s history erroneously credit him as the founder of the first movie theater in town. Manuel upset a lot of people when he took over the Grotto because he raised the admission price from a nickel to a dime, but used the money to spruce up both the interior and exterior of the theater and add improved projection equipment. He also attempted to attract women to the theater by giving free china to women who attended on Thursday nights.

Not much is known about the Grotto’s employees, but Jennie Howe “Trixie” Ward Lasley worked the box office at one time. George Thomas Clapp, Manuel May’s 18-year old first cousin, was projectionist at the Grotto, and blind pianist Henry Graves Easley played accompaniment to the silent films (with someone sitting next to him on the piano bench whispering a running commentary about what was happening on the screen so that he could change the music to fit the scene).

Manuel May, who eventually acquired sole interest in the Grotto, decided to get out of the theater business completely in the spring of 1918. His older brothers Ben and Will had recently started a dye and finishing works to complement their hosiery mill, so Manuel went to work with them in that enterprise.

Alamance County-native Clark C. Coley, who began operating the rival Crystal Theater at 205 South Main St., in the fall of 1914, was the next owner of the Grotto. He renamed it “Victory” since the country was then embroiled in World War I. However, he quickly became unpopular with some of the more conservative women in Burlington because he brought chorus girls on stage at the theater. Women began complaining to their ministers about their husbands frequenting the Victory just to ogle the chorus girls, so they began denouncing Coley’s shows from their pulpits, which actually increased business.

Clark Coley ran the Victory and Crystal theaters until the fall of 1922, when he moved to Sherman, Texas. Pickens Calhoun “Mack” McIntire, a 66-year old former butcher and theater operator in High Point, bought both the Victory and Crystal theaters. He promptly renamed the Victory “Mack,” after himself (and also renamed the Crystal “Rose”). The day-to-day management of both theaters was handled by his 43-year old son, William Calhoun McIntire.

McIntire died at Rainey Hospital on June 4, 1925, and the Mack and Rose were soon sold to Direction-Stevenson Theaters, which was just finishing construction of the new Carolina Theater on Main Street. When it opened a short time later, both were closed (although the Crystal/Rose reopened briefly as the “Lyric”). The building where the Grotto/Victory/Mack was located was eventually acquired by F. W. Woolworth & Co. and used to house its lunch counter until it closed in the late 1960s. The building is currently being renovated.